Cognitive Linguistics and Quranic Arabic Metaphor: Implications for Arabic Language Pedagogy in Nigerian Universities

The application of cognitive linguistics, particularly Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Blending Theory, to the analysis of metaphorical language in Quranic Arabic has produced significant advances in our understanding of Quranic semantics and stylistics, yet the pedagogical implications of cognitive linguistic approaches for the teaching of Quranic Arabic in Nigerian universities remain theoretically underdeveloped and empirically untested. This study theorises and empirically evaluates the pedagogical implications of cognitive linguistic approaches to Quranic Arabic metaphor for the teaching of Arabic language and Quranic text comprehension in Nigerian university contexts. Adopting an integrated theoretical and experimental methodology, the research first develops a cognitive linguistic analysis of metaphorical structures in 30 selected Quranic passages commonly taught in Nigerian university Arabic programmes, mapping the source and target domain structures and blending processes involved. Based on this analysis, a cognitive linguistic-informed Quranic Arabic pedagogy intervention is designed and implemented with 120 second-year Arabic students at Ahmadu Bello University, compared with a control group of 120 students receiving standard grammatical-translation instruction in the same Quranic passages. Measures of conceptual comprehension, retention, and interpretive flexibility are administered at pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test intervals. The study finds significantly higher conceptual comprehension and interpretive flexibility scores in the cognitive linguistics intervention group, with strong retention at the delayed post-test. Keywords: Cognitive linguistics, Quranic Arabic, conceptual metaphor, Arabic pedagogy, Nigerian universities.